Carson woman's recipe featured in Costco cookbook

For all those who ate too much Thursday: Make something easy, non-fattening and touched with local color for the holidays by visiting the Costco display of "Entertaining the Costco Way" books at the store off Highway 395 South.

A poster on top of the display shows a photo of Barbara Boyd, a Carson City cook who has a recipe in the collection.

"I designed the recipe for Jack, my husband," said Boyd. "He has a cholesterol problem, but likes a sweet snack."

The recipe is for Citrus Herb Wafers "without dairy products of fat," Boyd said. "I did some research and decided I could switch bad fat for good fat without losing taste."

While Jack Boyd cannot credit his wife's wafter recipe for lowering his cholesterol count from 220 to 145, "It sure helped."

Barbara Boyd began working on the recipe last December. "I wanted to make it easy to cook while keeping it healthy," she said. "In fact, I simply designed it for Jack."

Barbara comes from an Italian family that took pride in its cooking. "Food was always important to use," she recalls. "You could use other herbs in the recipe, depending on your taste, perhaps licorice."

Here's Barbara Boyd's recipe for Citrus Herb Wafers:

1/2 cup light olive oil ("Olive oil is one of the better oils," she says.)

1/2 cup of sugar

1 large egg white

2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary

2 tablespoons grated lemon or orange peel

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Beat the olive oil and sugar in a bowl until creamy. Beat in the egg white, rosemary, citrus peel and vanilla. At low speed with the mixer, blend in flour until just combined.

Shape the dough into one 10-by-1/12-inch log. Wrap well in aluminum foil and refrigerate for an hour.

Slice the log into quarter-inch-thick slices. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet until edges are lightly golden. Transfer to cooling rack. Makes about 24 cookies.